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Trouble with your landline? If you have Verizon, especially on the east coast, it might not be the best time to have it fixed; The Daily Mail reports that "Forty-five thousand Verizon workers from Massachusetts to Washington, D.C., are on the picket line Sunday as labour contract talks fizzled. More than a fifth of the wireless giant's work force has gone on strike as contract negotiations for the wireline division broke down last night."

IVR: "Please tell me what youre calling about in your own words"
ME: "Billing"
IVR: "I didnt understand your request. Im going to disconnect this call, and you can try again later"

I also tried "representative", "account","help" and "support." I eventually got to a person who transferred me to the right department. and then the real fun started.....I asked the rep about a service plan and whether or not it was a flat rate or it included other taxes and fees. She told me i would have to ask an in-store rep for the answer.

Not sure if it's the same in the USA, but in the UK there's a very easy way of getting put through to the one person in the call centre who can actually sort out your problem, which works with all of the mobile carriers:

Sometimes works here. As did the old just enter rubbish in the tone menu until it dumped you to a rep. Unfortunately more and more companies are deciding they really don't need the customers who want to talk to someone. It's gotten to the point that even when you want to cancel a contract or have a repair you can't get anyone. I have one friend who just refused to pay his bill until they cancelled his service and then when they called him over his billing he paid the difference and told them to cancel it. The next month they called because they kept the service going after he told them to cancel it but didn't have a credit card on file to charge the non-existant service to. It's become almost criminal how companies act...at least the mob keeps your shop from burning down when they extort you.

The GP's point is that saying that to the automated system is about the most guaranteed way to get to speak to an actual person, instead of trying to appease the voice activated command line whose list of commands are terribly documented. Presumably the GP isn't intending to actually cancel the contract, the idea is that companies don't jerk around with customers intending to cancel, and will immediately forward the customer to a live person whose job is to avoid having the customer cancel their service.

In the US they make instant money from the cancellation, so they don't fight it as much. Why should they try to keep you when they make $500 for canceling your contract, knowing that you have no other choice or you wouldn't have signed up with them in the first place.

You are paying on the loan whether or not you take the loan. They have a government protection racket, and they purposefully damage phones in order to remove functionality that would allow you to take them to other carriers, and the government deliberately limits competition which decreases supply, increasing prices. There is no free market when there's a $10,000,000,000 or so barrier to entry. A free market has zero barriers to entry. The US does not now, nor ever, had a free market, and the worst part

The question was simple flat rate or no. For example, Boost Mobile(Sprint/Nextel) has a $50 plan that's just that.....$50. This differs from the more traditional $50 + tax and fees. Additionally, she wasnt your typical billing or support drone. The person who transfered me to her said she was their "Unlimited4G promotion representative" To me that implies sales knowlege of the service.

True story: One day, my DSL went out. It didn't bother me until it was still out a few hours later. I called my DSL provider. They ran some test and said, "Yes sir, we are seeing some problem on the line. We will fix it and get back to you." An hour or so later they called back:

"Your DSL is fixed now, thanks for your business!""No it isn't.""Yes it is.""No it isn't. None of the lights on my DSL modem are on.""Have you tried rebooting it?""Yes, I already... oh for fuck's sake. Hold on." (bullshitting while I

In other, totally unrelated news, Verizon reported a 6.3% earnings jump from last year at this time. Of course, since Verizon has less free spending money and has invested in their hopelessly out of date network to remain competitive with the 3rd world... they decided to cut labor and give themselves raises for being so smart!

the article is 'surprisingly' short on details about WHY the workers are on strike.

you can bet they have a good reason. and the fact that media does not report news anymore when its the little guy who gets stomped by big business..

I've been on the receiving side of having wages cut, benefits cut and then my job cut. I can look and see the middle class eroding before my own eyes. I can fully believe 'big wireless' is being greedy and forcing workers to settle for less and less over time.

why isn't this reported?

you know why. the real truth is not what media co's want coming out. its actually too unsettling to report this level of truth in the world.

I've been a fan of unions, recently. I see a lot of parallels between the days of woody guthrie and today. big companies are owning your ass and getting you to settle for less and less, all the while getting richer and richer. study history, its a 100% repeat of the early part of the 1900's in the US. listen to the pro-union and pro-labor songs (folk songs) and imagine them being sung today. they fit like a glove.

we need unions back. and we need most of the workers to admit this and force companies to stop stealing OUR hard earned wealth.

capitalism - in its current state - is a failure. look all around you. we need something better. what's it going to take before everyone realizes that? how much worse does it have to get?

capitalism - in its current state - is a failure. look all around you.

*looking around*

Yup, looks good. We have money in the bank, and our currency is so strong you could bounce an oil tanker off it. The unemployment rate is at an all-time low. People are starting businesses right and left. Most of them will not make it, but such is life. Crime is low, even for a country that ranks fourth when it comes to gun ownership.

Then again, we have sensible taxes, and we are not being overrun by teabaggers. We don't start wars that drain our coffers every decade or so.

The country would be Norway, which I understand is usually referred to as "communist" at your end of the pond. How are the republicans working out for you guys?

As I look around I see tea partiers trying to lower the oppressive tax burden that is stifling business and employment. I see a currency that has been driven into the ground by Liberal Keynsian economic philosophy in action (government stimulus will save the economy, to get money for government stimulus we will take the money from those who make up the economic engine of the country. Then we take 25% of that money for administrative costs of a bloated and corrupt government and send the rest to out favorite

If I were to sit on a few million bucks, I would wait it out. Most people are like me.

Most people who have no money think like you, maybe. People who do have money know better than to "sit on it" until inflation wastes it away to nothing. And how do you want a multimillionaire to "sit on" his money, anyway? Stick it under the mattress? Even if you just put it in a no-interest checking account, the bank still invests your money -- you just don't see any of the proceeds. Why let someone else take their cut when you get nothing? If you have real money, you have pretty much no option but to inve

Like educated, urban populations in general, journalists tend to be socially liberal -- socially conservative positions are almost always the product of poor education, or of parochial views resulting from a narrow experience of the world. But on economic issues, the media leans right.

the article is 'surprisingly' short on details about WHY the workers are on strike.

It's a British newspaper (and not a good quality one). I think "Talks in Philadelphia and New York stalled after Verizon demanded more than 100 concessions from workers regarding health care, pensions and work rules, said the Communications Workers of America" sums it up for me, though I'd expect more detail if it was happening here in the UK.

It's odd to have the Daily Mail as the source for some very American news though.

how much worse does it have to get?

I don't know. The anti-union posts on here are really strange to me. (and this one [slashdot.org]).

I understand the sentiment against unions here but the reality is that they are the only chance for workers to negotiate in equal footing with company owners. Corruption inside unions, like corruption in corporations and governments come from a lack of accountability. Make the union leaders to follow the same rules of the elected public officers and make sure that all elections and votes are done by free and secret ballot and you get a union that will take the same care of the company as the shareholders if

I do listen to some of the older songs in that area and heck, you even have Dropkick Murphys making new ones.However, even if I like the music, I'm not automatically going to agree with the political opinions embodied within.It can be good for helping to bring the topic to one's attention and for rallying the base, though.

Does someone have a gun to your head forcing you to work at these places you're complaining about? If you don't like it, find another job or start your own company

figuratively yes, people need their jobs far more than employers need an individual worker

I would go along with your idea to ban organized labor as long as we ban organized capital (corporations) as well. Corporations are an abomination against nature, a legal entity which exists on paper but for which nobody is responsible.

"people need their jobs far more than employers need an individual worker"

I disagree with this statement, and all you need to look at to prove it isn't correct is the fact that the overwhelming majority of jobs pay more than minimum wage. This means that companies willingly pay more than they are legally obligated to in order to obtain their labor force. They also willingly provide additional vacation time beyond that legally mandated and health and dental benefits and a variety of other perks. They don't

Yes, people are pressured into having a job because there are bills to pay. So, figuratively speaking, a gun is pointing at their head, with the more or less direct threat to suck it up or be spat out.

The employment market favors the employer. For everyone working at a job, 10 are waiting for him to get fired. Do you think it is a good idea to let corporations dictate salaries? If so, we'll end up where we were at the beginning of the industrial revolution. People will work 16 hours and more for an income t

Which country do you live in that has a 90.9% unemployment rate?!? And how, exactly, do "corporations dictate salaries"? Are you not voluntarily employed?

I certainly see the appeal of the world view which posits that you have no control over your life and the world is a terrible place and woe is me and everyone is against me and I cannot compete and therefore need to be subsidized, but seriously: give your head a shake - it is impossib

You are on the side of inhuman collectives, corporations, artificial legal creatures spawned by government for the express purpose of avoiding responsibility. Your talking points are noise. When the citizenry no longer makes enough to buy the crap for which your patrons shipped manufacturing offshore, (i.e. now) then their sales will plummet even as they cut employment. Your masters have cut their own throats.

I'm glad your vitriol is as impotent as your philosophy! It's also amusing to me to read the assumptions you blindly make of me, simply because I disagree with you about something, and resort to name-calling - the red flag of the weak argument.

But relax: when you get to high school, you may have the opportunity to learn more about economics and markets, and I think you'll be surprised.

You can't more wrong. It took 30 years of concentrated efforts by "business" and corrupt government to weaken the unions. The fact hat it took so long for a well-financed, organized, vicious assault to semi-succeed clearly demonstrates that workers still understand how useful unions are.

I'm sorry you have such a low opinion of your ability to compete (which is not to say I can determine if it's misplaced or not). But asking others to pay your way because you won't is about as far removed from "fair" as it gets.

If you object to collective bargaining by workers, then presumably you object to collective bargaining by capital - that is, the management representatives of banks fraudulently lending out 20x the money they ultimately got either from workers or their private, government-backed cartel, the Federal Reserve. Collective, Soviet-style capital, totalitarian fiefs backstopped with multi-trillion-dollar bailouts from the supposed people's government because they threatened to fly the economy straight into the gro

Wow. I'd like to respond but it's not at all clear to me what point it is you're trying to make. I'll try, tho...

If by "banks fraudulently lending out 20x the money they ultimately got either from workers or their private, government-backed cartel, the Federal Reserve" you mean "do I oppose the fractional reserve system, whereby banks can, as an example, lend $100 for each $10 in deposits they take in", my answer would be no, I'm not opposed to that. I'm most certainly opposed to bailouts of any sort: if

"'do I oppose the fractional reserve system, whereby banks can, as an example, lend $100 for each $10 in deposits they take in', my answer would be no, I'm not opposed to that."Then you are in favor of allowing fraud for privileged cronies of the money cartel. (Fractional reserves could make sense if 10-year deposits were matched by a proportional amount of 10-year loans, but that's not what happens. All deposits, including demand deposits go into a sweep account. Which used to matter before the Fed starte

Here are the details: The company was paying the healthcare and now they want to cut it out from salaries.

For example, you get contracted with an offer that says that you will be paid X in cash and another Y in health care insurance (paid directly by the company).

Now the company says that you have to accept receiving X-Y because "you are not contributing to your health care premium" (thats false, you were earning it before even if it didn't go through your paycheck).

Here are the details: The company was paying the healthcare and now they want to cut it out from salaries.

For example, you get contracted with an offer that says that you will be paid X in cash and another Y in health care insurance (paid directly by the company).

Now the company says that you have to accept receiving X-Y because "you are not contributing to your health care premium" (thats false, you were earning it before even if it didn't go through your paycheck).

Typical example of corporate newspeak.

And to that I would still have to say wahhhhhhh. Because they weren't contributing to their health care premium and to say they were simply because the company was paying for it before and now they aren't doesn't really act as some kind of double pay cut or something. The company was paying for it and now they no longer can afford to or don't want to. I stand by my previous "Welcome to the real world" statement.

The employees have always paid 100% of their healthcare and their pensions, and 100% of the corporations' profits. Everything the shareholders and the management have ever taken has been the fruits of the employees' work.

The employees have always paid 100% of their healthcare and their pensions, and 100% of the corporations' profits. Everything the shareholders and the management have ever taken has been the fruits of the employees' work.

How very socialist of you. I'm sure the company has done absolutely nothing in that regard and does nothing but suck away the valuable and noble labor of those poor poor Union members.

As to your implication that what the company is doing is morally wrong, on what basis do you have such a belief?

No, it has been between Rich and Poor, although the Poor are getting stomped, as much as the Rich might want us all to believe otherwise. If you look at the last 20 years, the vast majority if the *new wealth* which has been created has been concentrated in the hands of the top 0.1% of the population. That's where all the money has gone, not towards social security, not towards Cadillac health insurance for people with jobs in manufacturing. Where is the money to provide pensions and health-care to the share of the population who doesn't have it? It's sitting in Bill f-ing Gates bank account, that's where it is.

There's a plate with 12 cookies on it, a rich guy, a teacher and a regular working Joe.

The rich guy takes 11 of the cookies, leans over to Joe, and says "I'd watch out, I think the teacher is trying to steal your cookie."

Relative metrics really are zero-sum games, but they don't measure how comfortable you are; instead, they're really about measuring social status.

Not exactly. We're looking at an entire generation of Americans who might get bankrupted if they need minor surgery and will never be able to afford to retire. The fancy TV's, even without being turned on, serve their role well in distracting the working class from how much worse their situation is.

They are already fixing this. Pensions are a thing of the past for almost all private sector workers. Originally, public sector workers gained these benefits as a way to keep up with private sector (largely unionized) employees - to keep public sector benefits even.

Now that the private sector has eliminated pensions (and unions for the most part), the same will hold true for the public sector.

Take away a benefit from one group, pit them against another group that still has the benefit, and you lower your

I'll say up front, I don't know if the workers are striking because they don't have gold-trimmed toilet seats or their vacation benefits are being cut, but I don't really care. After seeing workers getting shafted in all sorts of industries, I'm quite happy to see at least one group of workers showing the middle finger to the execs.

Unfortunately, my family uses Verizon wireless, but I wasn't going to call customer service any time soon.

Years ago, a UPS driver who was our "regular" guy told me that the drivers had to pay for scratches and damages to the trucks. That's one anecdote and I never verified it. So UPS already has been shafting their drivers.

Depending on the union contract UPS drivers have to pay for damages to their trucks, but the UPS drivers also get things like the ability to retire with a full pension and health insurance after 20 years. Now this just changed and they added that you had to be older than 57 to retire. I just had a conversation with a guy griping that he had to wait another 10 years to retire. He thought that was just not fair, I mean he was 45 and had 18 years. But he said it wasn't all bad, because he had 8 weeks of vacati

Unfortunately, my family uses Verizon wireless, but I wasn't going to call customer service any time soon.

Verizon Wireless is not affected - they're non union and a different company from Verizon Telecom, jointly owned by Verizon Communications (55%) and Vodaphone (45%). The level of disinformation happening in this Slashdot discussion far exceeds the normal level.

Verizon wants 100 concessions from their union employees. Even though Verizon’s top five executives received compensation of $258 million over the past four years (1), Verizon wants to freeze pensions for current employees. Also eliminate traditional pensions for future workers, while making its 401(k) plans somewhat more generous for both (2). Additional, there's demands from Verizon regarding health care premiums for union employees.

This right here. I'm willing to do the same (accept a lower paycheck) if that means staying employed. I assume most Americans would do the same all while grumbling about the whole process. But you know what? The cost of goods would also come down because no one can afford them. Technically, this would be deflation. However, we are in a period of inflation at this moment. At some point, all fiat monetary were bound to have their weaknesses exposed. If you ask me politics only accelerated the inevitable to co

"We", kimosabe? Lots of problems have monetary solutions, if you are willing to spend enough money. Surely, you have heard of the free market. Do you really expect to attract hardworking, talented people, if you don't compensate them properly? Conversely, if you pay peanuts, why are you so surprised when you get monkeys?

But that would essentially be the same as taking a pay cut, definitely something worth striking over. If the employees have to pay for their health-insurance, then surely they should receive an equivalent pay rise? I don't see why you don't just add a payroll tax and get everyone universal health care coverage though, in the end it's the same except employers can't get out of it and it will be way cheaper without all the insurers skimming huge profits and a single large payer to negotiate prices for drugs a

I have mixed feelings about this one. I think it is fair to expect Verizon's union workers to contribute money towards their healthcare costs. Just about every other employer makes their employees do so.

"My job sucks, so it's only fair that other people's jobs should suck too instead of taking the effort to organize with my coworkers and demand that our job suck less."

A poor peasant in a desparate country is plowing his field. Suddenly his plow turns up an exotic looking lamp. He brushes the dirt off the lamp and out comes a genuine middle eastern Genii.

The Genii speaks, "I am greatful to you for freeing me. Normally I would grant 3 wishes to whoever frees me but I am far from home, and have only the strength to grant one wish. Whatever you like - wealth, power, fame - is yours for the asking."

I see. "I have to pay for a small part of my healthcare" means "my job sucks".

Let's all organize and demand unlimited freebies until executives cut their pay to $50,000 per year. I'm sure they'll be doing that almost right away. Remember all those times that executives cut their own pay to under $100,000 at all those other companies?

There's nothing to be mixed about. Verizon employees feel it's worth it to strike, let them strike. I don't want a union where I work right now because it wouldn't benefit me, but history has shown when we outlaw the ability for workers to strike, it causes real problems.

I have mixed feelings about this one. I think it is fair to expect Verizon's union workers to contribute money towards their healthcare costs. Just about every other employer makes their employees do so.

If employee's should be forced to contribute to their company provided health insurance...

What is the difference to paying a tax that provides universal health care?

Yes, except I can't get FiOS where I live, so Verizon can't get me VoIP if they wanted to. Even if they did, I'd be hesitant to sign up for one reason:

Land lines are among the most heavily regulated, heavily redundant services provided. The northeastern US had a three day long blackout in 2003. Awesome time, actually (except the driving; none of the traffic lights worked). Between the time the power went out and the time it came back, I never lost a dial tone. I remember reading somewhere that the PSTN has